Vol. 72/No. 46      November 24, 2008

The owners of six refineries, including the largest in the country, agreed November 8 to an 11.5 percent increase in payment per ton of sugar cane. They also agreed to provide more work tools to the cutters, set up a fund to help the workers build housing, and give out 1,000 scholarships to train cutters in preparation for increasing mechanization of the cane harvest.

Members of the National Cane Cutters Union had approved demands in June in meetings involving thousands of workers. They went on strike September 14 and blocked the entrances to many of the refineries.

The cane cutters, mostly Afro-Colombians, have a history of struggle. In 1976 a long strike at the Riopaila refinery helped strengthen the Central Union of Workers (CUT), one of Colombia’s three main union federations. There was also a strike three years ago.

Colombian president Alvaro Uribe accused the strikers of carrying out plans of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to destabilize the government. Four strikers were arrested on charges they were agents of the guerrillas, but were released after the union protested.

Before 2000, the refineries hired the cutters directly. Now most of the cutters are contracted through cooperatives, which deduct a large part of their paycheck for administrative expenses, transport to work, social security, and other expenses that the companies pay for employees hired directly.

Prior to the strike the companies paid the cooperatives about 9,000 Colombian pesos per ton, but after deductions, workers only received about 5,700 pesos (US$2.50).

According to a government study, the average pay for cutters is 595,000 pesos a month, about $250 at current exchange rates.

One of the main demands of the strike was for the refineries to contract workers directly, not through cooperatives, Daniel Aguirre, president of the union, told the Militant in a phone interview November 12 from Calí, Colombia.

“We couldn’t win that this time. The companies claimed it was out of their hands, because the cooperatives were set up under federal law,” Aguirre said. The union is asking the Colombian legislature to overturn those laws.

At the start of the conflict, the government Social Protection Ministry claimed the cutters had no right to strike because they are “owners” of the cooperatives, not workers.

“The cutters work all year round, 12 hours or more a day, with hardly any time off,” Aguirre said. “It is difficult work. A worker can cut five tons of cane in a day, there can be more than 11,000 movements with the machete.”

As a result many cutters suffer from repetitive stress injuries. “The companies give each worker only four machetes, four files to sharpen the blades, and three pairs of boots a year, but they use up 20 machetes and six pairs of boots,” Aguirre said, leaving workers no choice but to buy their own. The companies also don’t provide sufficient amounts of gloves.

The companies must “resolve the problem of the more than 200 compañeros who are disabled every year and find them alternate jobs as well as those who are permanently disabled and have been denied pensions,” the union’s list of demands said.

The union also demanded that the sugar companies pay the first three days’ wage when workers miss work due to on-the-job injuries. After three days government worker compensation kicks in.

As part of the agreement, the companies agreed to pay the first two days’ wage and provide most of the work equipment, although not all, Aguirre said.

In 2007 more than 21 million tons of sugar cane was processed in the Cauca Valley, to produce 2.28 million metric tons of sugar and 275 million liters of ethanol.

At the beginning of November several companies announced they were laying off refinery workers who are employed directly by the companies and are not on strike, and blamed the layoffs on the cane cutters. Many of the refinery workers belong to another union federation, the Federation of Colombian Workers (CTC).

About 1,200 cutters for two refineries are still on strike, Aguirre said, but they hope to have a settlement soon.

Caracol television broadcast a video of hundreds of cutters cheering the settlement at the Cauca refinery. “We still need to put an end to the cooperative system,” Cane cutter Alexánder Caicedo told the station at the November 8 rally. “It’s a system of slavery, it’s the way they steal from us.”  
 
 
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